Commission Says Millburn Needs New Form Of Government

MILLBURN, NJ — “Council-manager” and nonpartisan elections. Those are two of the newest recommendations from a voter-approved commission in Millburn.

Last November, Millburn voters were asked to cast a "yes" or "no" vote on whether to elect a commission to study the town charter and potentially recommend changes to the town's form of government. After the work of the commission is complete and a recommendation is made, voters will have an opportunity to decide whether to enact the commission’s suggestion in a future election.

The measure passed by margin of more than 30 percent. Learn more about the Millburn Township Charter Study Commission and see its meeting schedule here.

>> READ MORE: Millburn Voters Approved This New Commission: Here's What They've Been Working On

The commission offered a roundup of its most recent activities on Monday (read their full news release below).

Here’s what its members have been debating, the group reported:

The Millburn Township Charter Study Commission (the “Commission”) voted unanimously to recommend a Council-Manager form of municipal government on March 26, the culmination of a three-hour meeting that consisted of substantive deliberation amongst the five commissioners, bookended by two rounds of comment from the public.

Under Council-Manager, as specified under a New Jersey state statute known as the Faulkner Act, legislative authority is held by an elected township council. The council appoints a township manager who holds executive authority. The Commission’s recommendation further specified a 7-member township council to be elected in non-partisan elections. Councilmembers would serve 4-year terms, with terms staggered so that elections occur every two years.

The Commission is now working with legal counsel to draft its official report. Once the report is ratified by the Commission and filed with the state, Millburn voters will decide whether to adopt the recommendation for change in a public referendum. If adopted, Millburn Township would transition from its current 5-member Township Committee to the proposed Council-Manager structure. Currently, members of the Township Committee are elected to 3-year terms in annual, partisan elections, with either one or two seats up for election each year.

Commission Recommends Eliminating Partisan Elections

The question of partisan versus non-partisan elections generated the most extended debate of the evening, with commissioners – 3 Democrats, 1 Republican, and 1 unaffiliated – openly disclosing their own party affiliations before arriving at a unanimous position in favor of non-partisan local elections.

Approximately 43% of Millburn’s registered voters are unaffiliated – meaning nearly half of the electorate has no formal role in selecting candidates under the current partisan system. Commissioners heard repeatedly from residents who said they would consider running for local office but were reluctant to attach a party label to their name, citing professional and personal considerations. Non-partisan elections, commissioners argued, lower that barrier. It was noted that party involvement would not necessarily be eliminated, as political parties would remain free to endorse candidates and organize; those endorsements simply would not appear on the ballot itself.

One counterargument the Commission encountered was practical: might non-partisan elections disadvantage Millburn with county grant funding, given that partisan alignment with Essex County’s Democratic majority could theoretically advantage municipalities at budget time?

The Commission investigated the claim directly. A review of the 2025-2026 Community Development Block Grant Program Sponsored Projects published by Essex County Executive’s office showed the opposite. Essex County municipalities with partisan elections — including Fairfield, Livingston, and Millburn — received grants in the range of $31,000 to $74,000. Municipalities with nonpartisan elections — including Belleville, Montclair, Nutley, Orange, Verona, and West Orange — received grants in the range of $100,000 to $354,000. The Commission concluded that the empirical evidence did not support the concern.

The deeper argument was about what party labels actually communicate in a local election. Commissioner Dr. Jerry Kung framed it directly: “The R and the D don’t describe any real difference in how you fill a pothole, negotiate a DPW contract, or approve a site plan. They were built for debates about foreign policy and federal spending – issues over which we have exactly zero jurisdiction.” He drew on behavioral psychology studies in which researchers found that groups arbitrarily sorted by label will choose outcomes actively worse for everyone – including themselves – as long as their group finishes further ahead of the other. “They would rather win than do well,” Dr. Kung said. “Once you have a label, you have a team. Once you have a team, you have an opponent.”

Commissioners acknowledged that non-partisan elections are not a cure-all. Party dynamics do not disappear simply because labels are removed from the ballot. But the unanimous view was that removing the label reduces the incentive to perform for a national audience at the expense of local problem-solving – and opens the door to a wider, more representative candidate pool.

Commissioner Joanna Parker-Lentz, a self-described “bleeding heart liberal” and lifelong Democrat, described wrestling with the question throughout the commission’s study process. “I tended to flip-flop,” she said. “I really thought I’d be more pro-partisan – and I have not stayed that way.”

What changed her mind was less abstract than ideology. She recalled a cousin – a loyal Democrat – who once crossed party lines to rescue a mayor of the opposing party during a flooding emergency. His reward: his own party refused to back him. “It’s the people, not the party,” she said.

She also noted that Ben Forest’s testimony “really sealed the deal.” Mr. Forest is a sitting Red Bank councilman and a longtime member of that borough’s Democratic Municipal Committee. When he served on Red Bank’s Charter Study Commission in 2022, his faction had just won the majority on the Democratic Municipal Committee – meaning partisan elections would have worked decidedly to their advantage. Their commission chose to recommend non-partisan elections anyway. In his campaign to serve as councilman, he canvassed door-to-door, including the doors of neighbors he knew did not share his politics, and found those conversations more productive for having left party affiliation at home.

Recommendation Addresses Annual Election Cycle Governance Burden

In the first phase of its study process, the Commission identified the annual partisan election cycle, which is required under the current Township Committee form, as the most pressing impediment to efficient and effective governance. Municipal employees described annual elections as causing “quite a bit of overhead” with constant turnover requiring ongoing onboarding assistance. Many described it feeling like “it’s always election season, with either a general or primary election occurring every 6 months,” and noted that “having elections every year causes reluctance to make big changes.”

As part of the second phase of its study process, the Commission conducted a public interview with Mayor Dr. Christopher Tamburro of Verona. Mayor Tamburro, a teacher of political science at Verona High School and an adjunct professor at Caldwell University, corroborated this sentiment: “If you have an election every year, your time where you’re really able to govern without an election happening is from January to about March or April – if you’re partisan – because then you start to get into the primary season and into the general election season.”

He contrasted that with his experience in Verona, which holds non-partisan elections every two years. “One of the beauties of our system of government is that we only have elections every other year, which allows the council to really work together on setting and achieving goals during that time.”

Randolph Township Manager Gregory Poff, who was also publicly interviewed and who has managed municipal and county governments under multiple structures, similarly noted that elections every other year are preferred because they allow members to govern “without constantly seeking re-election.”

Executive Authority Enshrined in State Statute Rather than Local Ordinance

In the first phase of its research, the Commission identified the critical importance of Millburn’s strong Business Administrator (“BA”) structure, in which a professional administrator holds broad supervisory authority over departments and day-to-day operations. In Millburn, this structure has been in place through a locally-defined ordinance that was adopted in the early 1980s.

The ordinance came at the insistence of Tim Gordon, who would go on to serve as Business Administrator for 31 years. Gordon's condition for accepting the role, as recounted in commission interviews, was that executive authority had to be taken seriously: codified in an ordinance, with real supervisory scope, and not subject to interference from elected committee members. Township Committee members at the time were reluctant to cede that authority, but ultimately agreed — a decision that has served the township well. Millburn has had only two business administrators in the four decades since, and maintains a triple-A bond rating.

The Commission identified a structural vulnerability in this arrangement. The BA ordinance is locally defined, which means a future Township Committee could revise or weaken it by simple majority vote. In a council-manager form under the Faulkner Act, that option disappears: the manager's responsibilities are defined by state statute, and no future governing body can alter the fundamental division of executive and legislative authority at the local level. The Commission identified this statutory protection as the centerpiece of its recommendation.

Commissioner Shaunak Tanna noted, “It makes sense to make it cleaner and adopt a different form from the Township Committee form because in the past we have felt it was inadequate to address our needs as a municipality.” He pointed out that prior Township Committees had “chosen to put a lot of executive power in the hands of a business administrator,” which was not the original intent when the Township Committee form was designed.

The Commission's attorney noted that the practical effect on day-to-day operations would be limited — the township already functions very much like a council-manager government, and formalizing it under statute would not change much operationally. But commissioners argued the structural protection matters: forty-one years of successful precedent should not rest on a document any current or future majority could amend.

The shift to the Faulkner Act also removes constraints inherent in the current Township Committee form. For instance, there is no option to deviate from annual, partisan elections under the current form. Similarly, Township Committees may have only three or five members — additional members are not allowed. Residents also have no mechanism to place direct petitions or referendums on the ballot. As Commissioner Corey Biller put it during deliberations, the current form “really handcuffs our options.” The council-manager form lifts those constraints.

Council Size and Mayor Selection Process Debated

Under the Faulkner Act, a council-manager governing body may have 5, 7, or 9 members. The Commission determined at the outset that 9 would be unwieldy, leaving the central debate between 5 and 7. Commission Chair Chris Drucker advocated for 7 members, stating that "when the council has big decisions to make, I think there'll be better robust discussions as opposed to 5." He emphasized that more productive debate can be had with 3-member subcommittees, which are prohibited for 5-member governing bodies. While initially the concern was raised that a 7-member council would create more overhead for the township manager, the benefits of having additional diverse voices, better subcommittee coordination, and additional opportunities for residents to serve persuaded the Commission to unanimously recommend 7 councilmembers, elected at large.

The Faulkner Act permits either a directly elected mayor or a council-appointed mayor. The Commission’s recommendation for a council-appointed mayor – selected by a majority vote of the council at its biennial reorganization meeting – is consistent with how Millburn’s mayor is currently selected at annual reorganizations of the Township Committee. The recommendation carries that practice forward under a new statutory framework, with the mayor serving as head of the legislative council.

Commissioner Biller, who initially favored direct election, described coming around on the question. “I went in wanting the direct election of the mayor,” he said. “But I’m conflicted, because with a weak mayor – which is what we’re going for – is it confusing to tell the people that they’re electing a mayor, but the mayor really doesn’t have much more power than a councilperson? I feel like it sends a confusing message to residents.” He also raised a practical concern: candidates who run for a directly elected mayor position and lose would be cut off from serving on the council, unnecessarily narrowing the pool of people available to serve.

Other members of the Commission noted that the Council-Manager form of government was based on the corporate governance model, where shareholders elect a Board of Directors that appoints the CEO of the corporation. In that model, directors elect the Chair of the Board, rather than the shareholders directly electing the Chair.

Next Steps

At its March 31 meeting, the Commission turned to election timing, ultimately voting to place the referendum on a special June 16, 2026 ballot following more than 90 minutes discussion – a choice driven by considerations of governance continuity and voter clarity, which will be addressed in a companion article.

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